Patrick Sullivan | Author

Deb Zerafa is the person who checks on someone suspected of hoarding cats. She’s whom the police call if they find sickly dogs locked up in cages in a house. If you’re walking down a trail and get bitten by a dog, it’s Zerafa who comes to investigate.

Gary and Sandra Houghtaling live in a cabin they built two decades ago on 10 acres. It sits just off a pockmarked dirt road that likes east of Beulah and south of Honor in Homestead Township, a deep rural patchwork of trees and fields that feels like the middle of nowhere.

Scientific consensus increasingly recognizes there’s no way to determine the level of impairment in a driver who uses marijuana. So why is a woman who smoked marijuana 10 hours before an accident that killed her mother facing a 15-year felony for impaired driving? A Benzonia law...
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The story of what’s happening in the region’s young micro-spirits industry parallels the journey of an oak barrel at Thompsonville’s Iron Fish Distillery. First that barrel was filled with gallons of maple syrup from Griner Family Sugar Bush in Copemish and aged, so that...
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Since 1951, Northwestern Michigan College’s quiet corner under the pines has seen many changes, but perhaps none so substantial as those happening now. With two major construction projects underway and a massive one in the works, the community college’s campus will never b...
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There’s a debate across the country about how much local officials should cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. It’s come into sharp focus in Benzie County, where Sheriff Ted Schendel has proclaimed he’ll do whatever he can to assist.

Sara Herberger, one of three paid employees of the Vogue Theatre in Manistee, got involved with the nonprofit in a roundabout way. Her eight-year-old son had asked about the then-dilapidated building after a fundraiser to restore it was announced, and she tried to explain to him what rest...
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Michael Moore, booked for a 12-week run on Broadway, can’t be at the festival he founded. A critical behind-the-scenes organizer died suddenly in June. And the largest venue is unavailable. Thirteen turns out to be a tough number for the Traverse City Film Festival. Read More >>

In the minutes leading up to the start of a Wednesday night sailboat race on West Grand Traverse Bay, the Grand Traverse Yacht Club’s longtime weekly tradition, vessels crowd together, each angling for an advantageous position on the water’s invisible starting line.

The scandal began with controversy over a Donald Trump sign on a shuddered hotel on Kalkaska’s Cedar Street. That was followed by outrage over hateful Facebook posts by the village president (and owner of the hotel), Jeff Sieting. Things crescendoed when demonstrators took to each s...
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Mike Carey had just retired from the U.S. Air Force at the rank of brigadier general. He was picking out patio furniture for his home in Colorado Springs. Then he decided he wanted to return to his home state of Michigan. “I walked by a little white board and someone ha...
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